Abstract
The ability to produce large numbers of pesticide-exposed insects (e.g. crickets) is important for feeding studies into the effects of pesticides on key predatory species. House crickets (Acheta domesticus L. 1758) were submersed in serial dilutions of the pesticides, fenitrothion and fipronil, used for the control of locusts in Australia, and then rapidly frozen for residue analysis. Good correlations were found between increasing concentrations of serial pesticide dilutions and the resultant residual concentrations of the parent compounds in crickets, with R2 values of 0.949 (fenitrothion) and 0.946 (fipronil). R2 values for the much less abundant fipronil metabolites were lower 0.858 (sulfone), 0.368 (desulfinyl) and 0.785 (sulfide). This method enables insecticide exposure mimicking the field conditions to be assessed, and can be done immediately prior to an experiment. This ensures locusts remain alive when introduced to the feeding chambers, and enables multiple prey items to be dosed with a known pesticide burden.
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All data are available from the corresponding author on request.
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We thank two anonymous reviewers whose comments have improved the manuscript.
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Funding was provided by the Australian Research Council and the Australian Plague Locust Commission through Linkage Grant (LP160100686).
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Story, P., French, K., Maute, K. et al. A method for topical dosing of invertebrates with pesticide for use in feeding experiments. Ecotoxicology 30, 381–386 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-020-02324-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-020-02324-y